Disqualified British swimmer furiously rants about Olympic judges

Britain’s Jack Burnell was left fuming and perplexed after being disqualified from the men’s open water swimming when in medal contention. Greece’s Spiros Gianniotis crossed the finishing line first but failed to touch the finishing board before the Netherlands’ Ferry Weertman, who claimed the gold medal in a time of 1hr 52mins 59.8secs.

The scoreboard originally showed Burnell had won bronze in a furious photo finish (he actually finished fifth upon review) but then learned he had been disqualified for interfering with Tunisia’s Oussama Mellouli, the defending gold medalist in this race, who ended up in 12th place.

Upon hearing the news, Burnell launched into a blistering rant about the race and officials, calling it “an absolute joke”.

“In the end apparently I was disqualified, about 2m from finish”.

“I felt a hand on my leg and it stops me dead, I took a few more strokes and he is still on my foot”. It’s ridiculous. The grandest stage of them all, ruined by a couple of judges’. The yellow card there is meant to be for unnecessary contact.

“The judges have ruined this”.

“Without a doubt, I am one of the fastest finishers in there”.

“He was the one that grabbed my leg and I turned around to get him off”, Burnell said.

“We are going to put an appeal in but it will do absolutely nothing”.

“There’s a ridiculous amount of boats out there, that are not needed, and every person on there has no idea what they’re doing”. This is meant to be the pinnacle of our sport and you’ve got referees out there that haven’t got a clue what they’re doing.